


Despite it all, a party

by Vacillating



Category: Sins of the Cities Series - K. J. Charles
Genre: Ancient Rome, Fancy Dress, Fluff, M/M, children's parties, the prompt was historical roleplay but I got distracted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 21:05:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13935387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vacillating/pseuds/Vacillating
Summary: Sukey wants a birthday party. Justin isn't sure. Somehow or other, it happens anyway.





	Despite it all, a party

“Florrie had a fancy dress party for her birthday,” Sukey reported at the dinner table one Saturday night. She was trying to sound casual but she didn’t take her eyes off Justin.

“Did she?” Justin said, neutrally.

“She dressed up as Marie Antoinette.”

“Is that so?”

“And they played games and had ice cream.”

“Ice cream,” Emma said wistfully. 

“It sounds like a good party,” Nathaniel said, in a tone rather like Emma’s. 

“I’ve never had a birthday party,” Sukey added. 

“You don’t know when your birthday is,” Emma said.

“They made one up for me,” Sukey countered.

It was true; in the course of filling in forms to put her into school, Justin and Nathaniel had been obliged to invent a number of facts about Sukey, including a date of birth. 

“And what did you learn at school this week?” Justin asked, sensing that the current line of conversation could become dangerous.

“Oh, boring Latin and shit. Jus, please can I have a birthday party like Florrie’s?”

Very dangerous. “I’m not sure…” he began, but something – maybe an indrawn breath? – made him glance over at Nathaniel. 

“I remember a party my sister had when we were young,” Nathaniel said, “where the guests all came dressed as characters from fairy tales. She went as Snow White in a beautiful white gown.”

“What did you go as?” Sukey asked.

“She wanted me to dress as one of the dwarves but in the end I refused to put on the costume and stayed in the nursery,” Nathaniel said. Emma laughed but Sukey just looked surprised. “She’s four years older than me, and this must have been her tenth or eleventh birthday, so I was only about six.”

“The same age her son is now,” Emma said.

“Yes, that’s right – Simon will be seven in a few months,” Nathaniel said, managing to only sound a little strained. Justin and Sukey and Emma had only met Nathaniel’s sister and nephew and niece once, entirely by accident. Nathaniel was hoping not to repeat the experience, because he wasn’t the only one in the family good at asking questions, but the fascination Emma and Sukey had developed with the younger children was not giving him much confidence.

“He can be a dwarf at my birthday party,” Sukey said, magnanimously.

“Nobody’s agreed to a birthday party,” Justin snapped, heart sinking.

“Florrie had one!”

“Florrie’s not you.” He glared at her, a look which meant ‘stop now’, and she closed her mouth again without replying.

Nathaniel must have seen it too, because he asked Emma, “Did anything interesting happen at Clem’s this week?” and the conversation moved on.

*

It stayed in his mind, though, and when the girls were settled to sleep on the living room floor and Nathaniel went to lock up and he was finally alone, he sat on his bed and put his head in his hands.

He didn’t look up when the door moved, trusting that it would be Nathaniel. “I was afraid of this,” he said.

“Of?” Nathaniel sat down by him, close but not touching. 

“Of her wanting things she can’t have, things the other girls have,” Justin said. “She’ll have to learn, but it’s going to be hard.”

“I agree she’ll have hard lessons to learn,” Nathaniel said, and Justin, who had learned a lot in a short space of time about arguing with a lawyer, lifted his head far enough to glare at him pre-emptively. “But – you don’t need to look at me like that – but a birthday party doesn’t seem all that unobtainable.”

Justin sighed and put his head back in his hands. “It costs money,” he said. “Costumes cost money, food costs money, inviting people round means making sure everything is respectable which costs money. And it’s a risk, anyone visiting is always a risk and the more people there are, the harder it is to watch them all.”

“True, but – ”

Justin held up a hand to cut him off. “True and there’s an end to it. I can’t afford it, we’re not accepting your charity, and I’m not risking being arrested on sodomy charges just for a party. No,” he added before Nathaniel could draw breath, “I’m not discussing it. Goodnight.”

Nathaniel sighed, but stood up without speaking. He paused at the door, and Justin held still, not looking, afraid he was going to argue, but in the end he only said, “Goodnight,” and went to his own room.

*

In the morning, Justin couldn’t face Sukey’s disappointment. Instead, he stayed in bed like the coward he was, listening to the sounds of the household as Nathaniel got them breakfast, chatted to them, and finally sent the girls off to play in nearby Regent’s Park. 

Once they were gone, he slipped out, wrapped in Nathaniel’s too-big dressing gown, to find its owner sitting on the sofa and reading the newspaper. Nathaniel looked as if he hadn’t slept well, but he only smiled at Justin and said, “There’s a kipper left if you want it.”

It was almost cold. Justin ate it anyway, looking out of the window at a bright spring day and listening to the rattle of paper as Nathaniel read.

He looked round when Nathaniel folded the newspaper and put it down. “Justin,” Nathaniel said, turning on the sofa until they were also facing each other across the room. “I –”

“Want to argue with me,” Justin replied. “Can we please not do this?” He put down his fork with a click and folded his arms.

Nathaniel took a deep breath, visibly forcing himself to be patient. “I want to ask you a question,” he said.

Justin just looked at him.

“In life as a whole, do you see us as two individuals, or a team?”

Justin went on staring at him. Nathaniel locked his jaw and looked back, steadily; two people could play at that game.

“What do you want me to say?” Justin asked eventually.

“I want you to answer the question,” Nathaniel said.

“Well, yes.” Justin shrugged. “But you wouldn’t be asking if you hadn’t thought about the answers.”

“No,” Nathaniel agreed, sighing. “Justin, I don’t want to argue with you. I want to be on your side, I want to help you – and Sukey and Em, too.”

“I know,” Justin said. He got up from the table and went to sit next to Nathaniel on the sofa. “I know, but you can’t help us by just throwing money around. You agreed last night, she’ll have to learn sometime that she can’t have the things she sees the other girls having. I’d rather say no now, about a birthday party, than have to refuse something else later when she’s got her hopes up.”

Nathaniel nodded, and for a moment Justin hoped they were done. “She doesn’t ask for many things,” Nathaniel said, dashing Justin’s hopes. “She’s with the other girls all day, every day – in a dorm with them – hearing about their families – seeing their clothes – and this is the first time she’s asked for anything.”

“She’s already had lots of things,” Justin said, frowning. “School uniform, books, ink, pens…”

“Which the school requested,” Nathaniel said. “What’s she asked for, for herself?”

He had a point, damn it. “She’s only been there since September,” Justin objected.

“And now it’s April – eight months, and this is the first request to be like the others,” Nathaniel said. “That doesn’t seem so bad to me.”

“Even if you’re right, she still can’t have a birthday party,” Justin said. “Even if you pay, we can’t have hordes of people visiting here.”

“A small and select group of guests. You, me, Emma, Clem, Rowley, one school friend, my sister and her two. We tidy the flat and hide any evidence – if you and Sukey can set up a room for a séance, I’m sure you can make it look convincingly proper as well. No bigger risk of discovery than walking down the street together.”

“And when is this? She doesn’t have a birthday.”

“Handily, the one we invented is in May.” Nathaniel almost smiled triumphantly but the look on Justin’s face warned him that this was not the moment. 

Justin shook his head. “I should have stayed in bed,” he said.

Nathaniel reached out to him, slowly. “Is there something else about this worrying you?”

“No,” Justin said, “no, you’ve won, we’re having a party. Oh well.”

The gloomy tone he adopted for this remark didn’t seem to bode well for a joyful party, but Nathaniel thought better of commenting on it. Instead, he took Justin in his arms and kissed him, an idea which was better received, and suggested they went for a walk in the park.

“It is a beautiful day,” Justin agreed, and went to get ready.

*

He told Sukey over lunch, before she had to get the train back to school. 

“I had another think about having a birthday party. Nathaniel and I think we could manage a small party. Small, mind you –”

Whatever other warnings he was going to issue were lost in the smothering hug Sukey was giving him. “Thank you! Jus! A birthday party!”

“When?” Emma asked.

“Her school paperwork says her birthday is May 3rd,” Nathaniel said. 

“That’s only a few weeks,” Emma observed. Nathaniel nodded. “Can we have dresses?”

“I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Can it be fancy dress?” Sukey asked into Justin’s shoulder.

Justin sighed, long-suffering rather than negation. “I suppose so.”

“What do you want the theme to be?” Nathaniel asked. Sukey looked round at him; she obviously hadn’t got that far. “Fairy tales, for example,” he said. “Or kings and queens. Or ancient Rome. Or…”

“Ancient Rome!” Sukey said. “I’ll be Cleopatra, we’ve been doing Cleopatra at school.”

“Who’s Cleopatra?” Emma asked. Sukey’s explanation, with a few interjections from Nathaniel, took them through the rest of the meal and the walk to the station, where Sukey, still bubbling with excitement, was bundled on the train.

“We’ll work out the details next week,” Justin told her as they waved goodbye.

“My birthday’s in August,” Emma said as the train pulled out.

“I didn’t know that,” Nathaniel said, almost at the same time as Justin said, “Is it indeed.”

“It is!” she said, and tugged Justin’s hand to steer him towards the sweet shop on the corner.

*

Somehow, the party grew. Nathaniel invited Mark, who invited Pen, who invited Greta, who offered to make costumes for anyone who needed them. Sukey invited Florrie, whose mother assumed that she would accompany her daughter.

Justin started spending the evenings tidying and cleaning and worrying about whether their furniture or books or paintings or kitchen utensils would seem queer to anyone else.

“Will you please stop fussing,” Nathaniel finally snapped, one night when Justin was umming and ahing for the umpteenth time over a pencil drawing of a Greek statue which a school friend had given Nathaniel many years ago. “It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s going to look at it, and if they do, it’s perfectly appropriate. Especially as the party is meant to have an ancient Roman theme.”

“It’s a drawing of a naked man!” Justin said.

“Of a classical statue of a naked man, Justin, that’s how the Greeks made them.”

“I suppose they weren’t worried about being caught out as queers!”

“No, actually,” Nathaniel said, “if anything, they approved of it.”

Justin put the picture back on the mantelpiece and turned to stare at him.

“They thought that soldiers who fought alongside their lovers would be braver and fight harder because they valued each other so much,” Nathaniel said. “Have you never heard this before?”

“I didn’t have time for a fancy education, because I was busy pretending to talk to dead people to avoid staving to death,” Justin said. “Did they tell you this at school?”

“They taught us to read Greek and Latin and left us alone in the library,” Nathaniel said, shrugging. “Alfred – the man who drew that picture – and I spent a fair amount of time, err, researching these things.”

“And did your research have a practical component?” Justin asked. He was very gradually getting closer.

“You could say that.” Nathaniel was looking into Justin’s wide grey eyes and beginning to struggle to follow the conversation. “Schoolboy fumbling, really, we didn’t find anything very detailed.”

“Show me?” Justin suggested, now only inches away.

“This was my favourite,” Nathaniel said, and dropped to his knees.

*

On the Saturday of the party, something went wrong with the points on the line near Sukey’s school, and all the trains were delayed. Emma and Justin and Nathaniel stood on the platform, watching and waiting and worrying.

“Are you sure your sister will be okay with Clem?” Justin asked.

Nathaniel sighed. “Deborah’s sensible and polite. Clem might slip up, but he’s got Rowley there to help him. They’re probably swapping tips on how to keep taps shiny, or something.”

“What if Sukey doesn’t get here in time for her party?” Emma asked.

“It isn’t really a birthday party until she arrives,” Justin said. “We’ll start when she’s ready.”

“She must be worrying too.”

“At least she’s on the train with Florrie and Florrie’s mother.” 

Emma thought about that. “I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.”

They waited for another hour. It was a fine spring day, but as the afternoon wore on there was a stiff breeze which chilled the bones after a while. 

“I’m cold,” Emma said eventually. “Is the train ever going to come?”

Nathaniel went to consult a porter and came back with bad news. “They don’t know how long it will be, but they think it may be another hour or more.”

“We’d better go back,” Justin said.

“But what about Sukey?” Emma said. “And Florrie and Florrie’s mum? Someone’s got to meet them.”

“Sukey knows the way well enough,” Justin said.

“But it’s her birthday.”

Justin looked like he was about to argue so Nathaniel stepped in. “Someone ought to wait, but it doesn’t take three. You two go home, tell the other guests what’s happening – Mark and Pen and Greta will probably be there by now – and make sure everything’s ready. Start dinner if it gets too late. I’ll wait here for Sukey for as long as it takes.”

*

It took another three hours, by which time Nathaniel was cold and hungry. Sukey, as she got off the train, looked hungry and grumpy. She greeted Nathaniel with a perfunctory nod. “Where’s Jus?”

“He’s at home, getting the party ready,” Nathaniel said. “And this is?”

Sukey turned to gesture at her guests. “This is Florrie,” she said, and Nathaniel was struck by the different accent she employed with her school friend, “and her mother.”  
Florrie’s mother did not wait for niceties. “I must apologise, we cannot visit on this occasion,” she said. “We are due to stay at my aunt’s townhouse, you understand, and we anticipated arriving much earlier.”

“I understand,” Nathaniel said, although he could see from Sukey’s face that she didn’t. “Perhaps another time.”

Florrie’s mother inclined her head, took her child’s wrist in a firm grip, and hurried them both away.

“Goodbye!” Sukey called to Florrie, who looked round but was unable to answer.

Nathaniel picked up Sukey’s bag. They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Sukey said, “She’s horrid.”

“Florrie’s mother?”

“Yes. She was asking me all sorts of questions, where was I born, who was my father, what does he do.” Her accent wavered between the formal school one and the rougher London voice she used at home. “I think she thinks I shouldn’t be friends with Florrie.”

Nathaniel thought of several platitudes, but settled on, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“At least she can’t stop us being friends at school,” Sukey said. “But I did want her to be at my party.”

“I know. But there will be plenty of other people there.” They turned the corner and were in sight of the front door, where someone was peeking out to see if they were coming.

“Emma!” Sukey shouted, and raced off to meet her.

*

In the end, the party was a moderate success. The food was ready to serve just as Nathaniel and Sukey arrived, so they ate straight away – not a tidy three-course meal, because they didn’t own a table big enough for everyone, but a help-yourself pass-it-round dessert-first-before-it-melts joyous mess of a meal.

It was perhaps just as well, Nathaniel reflected, that Florrie’s mother had opted to absent herself from this. 

After dinner, everyone changed into their fancy dress. Greta had worked marvels, although as she pointed out, togas are relatively easy. Sukey looked very adult in her Cleopatra costume – perhaps more adult that Justin would have liked, judging by the choking sound he made when she appeared, but he managed to cover it up fairly well. 

Emma and Deborah had gone for simple shift dresses, and Greta a white, gauzy tunic topped with a bright blue cloak. Nathaniel, with a little more experience and some financial resources, had located a Julius Caesar Roman army uniform which was, if not perfectly fitting, very striking. 

Justin and Mark looked a bit uncomfortable in their togas, Rowley very uncomfortable and Clem strangely natural. Pen looked much like he usually did. Nathaniel reminded himself that statues didn’t tell you what colour anything was. Maybe some Romans had looked like that. 

Little Simon began in a small toga but was soon running around naked. “The Romans would have been used to that,” Deborah said, and left him. 

“Couldn’t Martha come as well?” Sukey asked once they were all ready.

Deborah shook her head. “She’s got a cough, so we thought it was better if she stayed at home,” she said. She flicked a glance up at Nathaniel. “We were very pleased to be invited, though.”

“I’m glad you could come,” Nathaniel said, “and, err, sorry Henry wasn’t available.”

“He wouldn’t have enjoyed it,” Deborah said. That was an understatement; her husband Henry and Nathaniel had almost come to blows over a political question the last time they tried to share a dinner table, and her brother’s rag-tag bunch of adopted children would not have met Henry’s standards of good company, besides raising questions about whose children they actually were.

Nathaniel simply nodded in acknowledge of this. “Now, Sukey,” he said, “were you going to offer us some parlour games to play?”

She was. They played the Reverend Crawley’s game, in which the usefulness of Justin’s ability to twist his arms through apparently impossible positions became rapidly obvious. They played a short round of charades, before it became clear that the assembled company had very little in common when it came to taste in reading matter. They started to play a card game, but nobody had learned the rules before it descended into a display in which Sukey demonstrated her skills at manipulations.

This went on for about half an hour before Justin caught Nathaniel’s eye across the room and mouthed, “Time.”

It was a rather shorter party than they’d planned, but they had agreed that whatever happened the girls should not be up too late past their usual bedtime. Nathaniel nodded. He turned to his sister and said, quietly, “Simon’s starting to look tired.”

“I think it’s nearly time for us to go home,” Deborah agreed without so much as a glance at her son. She started to gather up their belongings.

“Perhaps we’ll go as well,” Rowley said when Nathaniel brought Deborah and Simon their coats. Clem smiled at him, and Nathaniel refrained from kicking him only with the thought that it would make the situation even more obvious. 

“Share a cab?” Mark said. “I’m going your way.”

Nathaniel bundled them all out of the house with what he hoped was a fairly well-disguised haste, and turned back to find Justin helping Pen and Greta get ready to go. Greta was being slowed down by Sukey’s earnest thank yous. 

“You’re very welcome,” Greta said. “I still do a few costumes for Pen’s shows, but not nearly as many as I used to, and I enjoyed it.”

“Will you do some for my birthday party?” Emma asked.

“Certainly,” Greta said. Nathaniel caught the look of dismay on Justin’s face, quickly suppressed and fortunately behind Greta’s back. “When is it?”

“We’ll let you know,” Nathaniel said quickly, while Emma was still opening her mouth. “Thank you both for coming.”

A few more pleasantries, and then Justin was shutting the front door and sighing with relief. He hurried the girls to get ready to sleep, although in the end left them with a candle burning because it was clear they were going to go on talking forever, and slipped into Nathaniel’s bedroom.

*

“I brought a few of your things back in here,” Nathaniel said. He’d taken off most of his costume and was just in the woollen tunic which had formed the first layer.

Justin went to sit next to him on the bed, abandoning all attempts to keep the toga in place. “Thank you. Oh God. Do we really have to do that again in August?”

“Probably,” Nathaniel said, pulling him close. “Was it really that bad?”

“At least it was brief,” Justin said. “Every time your sister started to speak, I was terrified – Clem and Rowley are so obvious, and Pen…”

“Pen is a music-hall artist, and my sister is more tactful than to cause a scene at a child’s birthday party,” Nathaniel said. “Unlike Florrie’s mother, whom I’m sorry to say was extremely rude to Sukey.”

Justin sighed. “Maybe she’s learning that lesson after all.”

“I was glad she had real friends to come home to,” Nathaniel said. He took a handful of toga material and tugged gently, which rapidly gave him access to much more of Justin.

Justin turned in his arms and kissed him. “If we have to have fancy dress next time, can it be more comfortable than this?”

“At least yours looked good,” Nathaniel said, pulling his tunic over his head and away. “When you stop playing with it and stand still, you look ready to give a commanding speech in the Senate or something.”

“What am I going to command?” Justin asked. 

“A good hard fuck for every citizen,” Nathaniel said. Justin pushed him firmly on the shoulder and he went down, backwards, onto the bed. “Buggery for everyone who wants it.” He gasped as Justin took hold of him. “Yes. Please. Justin.”

Justin paused only for long enough to retrieve the little tub of petroleum jelly from under the pillow.

*

“I liked your friends,” Deborah said when Nathaniel met her for tea the following week. 

“Oh?” Nathaniel said. He was trying to sound casual but he knew he had tried too hard when Deborah met his eyes with a searching look.

“Clement and Rowley are both very kind,” she went on. “And Mark is very practical, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Nathaniel managed. It came out too guarded. “Yes, he is.”

“He probably takes good care of people,” Deborah said. She paused to sip her tea but she didn’t stop watching Nathaniel. “He employs Justin, doesn’t he? And he looks after Pen.”

Nathaniel had to look away, knowing it would tell her something, hoping it would be less revealing than his expression. “Yes, he’s good at watching out for people.”

“Justin does that too,” Deborah added. “He looks after those two girls very well. And he was concerned about you.”

Nathaniel couldn’t breath for a moment, didn’t even know what to think. His sister. Clearly knew. All Justin’s fears come true. Deborah just sipped her tea and nibbled her cake and waited until he met her eyes again. 

“I was glad to meet him properly,” she said with a smile. “You’re happier than you’ve been in years and I had wondered why.”

“You won’t…” Nathaniel began.

“Not a word to anyone,” she assured him. “Now, relax, and have a slice of cake.”


End file.
